


A Stay of Execution

by TehRaincoat



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehRaincoat/pseuds/TehRaincoat
Summary: Azula knows that she has to act quickly. She needs a distraction. She needs a clear path way, and she needs to get in and get out. Hopefully Iroh is strong enough to aid her in the fighting.





	A Stay of Execution

**Author's Note:**

> Another AU, prompted by a friend on tumblr: "WHAT IF ZUKO WAS THE HONOURED SIBLING AND AZULA WAS SIDELINED?? >:)"
> 
> the premise I’ve proceeded with is that Iroh was still captured in Ba Sing Se, but it was by Zuko, and it was specifically to allow Azula to escape along with Aang and the others. 
> 
> In this version Azula was right out banished and stripped of her titles after challenging one of the generals in the throne room about the unnecessary waste of their own troops. In this version Ursa didn’t disappear after the death of Azulon, but rather stayed at Ozai’s side until the Agni Kai, where she intervened and lost her life due to the severe burns she suffered.
> 
> This version of Zuko still loved his mother, and so part of his hatred for Azula is that he blames her for their mother’s death, as well as a feeling of competitiveness when their father’s attention is caught by the colour/power of Azula’s bending later on. so…there’s your context I guess. xD Enjoy!

The crowd is large and easy to get lost in, just as she has predicted it will be. There are no surprises there.

Azula creeps along the outskirts, hidden in plain sight the best that she can be as so recognisable a public figure. She’s relying on her far less polished look these days to get her through without being noticed.

The gathered voices of the crowd are thunderous. The dais set in the middle of the square is accessible only at one point; a path carved out by the Imperial Firebenders standing guard on the way to the executioner’s block, keeping the majority of the crowd at bay.

It doesn’t stop them from throwing things when her uncle does appear. He is led ceremoniously down the pathway that has been made for him to his execution, half naked, his old back bowed under the heat of the Fire Nation sun. He is splattered with the rotten juices of old fruits and vegetables. Spit. Azula feels sick to her stomach and enraged all at once as she watches on and considers her plan.

It’s a bad plan.

She might die too, but at this point does it truly matter?

She stares as her uncle is half dragged up the steps to the platform and then led to the pile of collected kindling gathered at the base of a long pole. They haven’t chosen anything that will catch all that fast. They want this to last.

Father wants him to suffer.

Azula knows that she has to act quickly. She needs a distraction. She needs a clear path way, and she needs to get in and get out. Hopefully Iroh is strong enough to aid her in the fighting.

They are bringing out the chains. It’s now or never. She takes a single step, starting to shoulder her way into the crowd.

A solid arm comes suddenly around her neck, and her hands come instinctively to the forearm plastered against her throat, head turning to relieve the pressure on her windpipe as she is dragged bodily backward, back to the shadows of the pillars that hold up the roof connected to the palace’s outermost building.

She is turned around in one quick motion.

“Hello sister.”

Azula’s eyes are wide as she stares into her brother’s hard expression, his forearm an uncomfortable weight against her collar bone as he presses her mercilessly into the pillar that is suddenly at her back.

“This is a surprise,” he continues, voice honey sweet, “I’d thought you were _smarter_ than this. In fact I know that you are.” The corner of his mouth lifts smugly as he leans in a little closer, his breath brushing her cheeks.

“I guess that’s what makes this all the more pathetically amusing.”

Azula stands her ground, breath hitching as he presses a little harder against her, driving home his point.

“Glad I could be a source for your amusement, Zuzu.” She forces her voice to sound bored, her expression falling to something a little more neutral and composed as she does. Zuko isn’t fooled.

“I’m glad too. Father was a little disappointed that I didn’t capture both traitors when I brought Uncle back to the Fire Nation. I think he’ll be very pleased when I drag your scorched remains into the throne room. I know it will certainly be another feather in my cap on top of killing the Avatar.”

“I’m sure you think so.”

His free hand catches her chin, tilting her face to look up at him. “It’s too bad though. What a waste of talent this will be.” He lets out a sigh.

“I’m tempted to put you up on the pyre with Uncle right now,” he informs her then, “but I have a feeling that dad will want to pass judgement on you himself. Perhaps it will ease his mind to be able to make up for the beating that mother took in your stead three years ago. I’m certain it will put my mind at ease.”

“Make as many threats as you want, brother,” she says, voice flat, “the fact of the matter is you have to actually _get me_ to father before any of these things can come to pass, and I don’t think you’re going to get as far as you believe you will.”

He bares his teeth and lets out a scoff.

“You’re awfully confident for someone who doesn’t have the upper hand.” He drags her forward, the pressure leaving her collar. Azula’s feet scrape against the wooden floor beneath her as she’s dragged toward Zuko by pure force; and then she’s moving with his momentum, tricking him into thinking that she is giving him what he wants.

Hand secured on the wrist that holds her own, she shuffles his arm out and around, twisting so that his weight forces him to the side and down. She lets go, and Zuko falls to the ground hard. Azula turns on the ball of her foot and shoots away from him at top speed.

A roar of rage can be heard before heat rapidly approaches her back, and out in the furthest reaches of the crowd there is a collective gasp in surprised horror. A plume of flames erupts out from the overhang of the courtyard, sailing high in the air like a volcano exploding its contents forth. There are faint cries of alarm.

At the platform that houses her uncle there is another scuffle, but before Azula can stop to pay attention to it, there is another onslaught of flames that erupt in a similar nature across from where her brother still doggedly pursues her. She cannot stop to wonder at it. The crowd is in a panic. There will be a stampede.

Azula tucks and rolls as another blast nearly misses her, and she comes up on a knee, aiming with precision for Zuko’s feet as they pound toward her.

Zuko handsprings backward, away from her onslaught, and Azula uses the distance that he has put between the two of them to her advantage. She dives toward the crowd before having to quickly divert again. He speeds toward her around a pillar on a plume of fire. 

The rumble of the boards that they now stand on alerts her to the arrival of Fire Nation soldiers. Azula springs into action, using her momentum to propel herself up the wall by sheer speed and force of will. The world tips dizzyingly, the uncomfortable heat of flames following her trajectory.

She grounds herself when she lands. She takes a sharp breath. Azula’s skin tingles as she separates the individual ions in the air and in her blood and whips her arms around. Two snakes of electricity crawl from the tips of her fingers. The air cracks and screams around her when she lets them loose.

The soldiers that had come to assist Zuko all slump to the ground. Above them, the roof is now aflame.

Zuko shoots a flame at her, hoping that she is sufficiently distracted, a wide eyed look on his features that she only briefly glimpses before she takes a dive into the anonymity of the crowd. She has to get to Uncle. She has to get them _out_ of here.

Behind her there are grunts as Zuko gives chase, shoving aside panicking members of the crowd. Azula darts between quickly closing spaces in bodies, trying to give him the slip. Zuko is shouting for the people around him to get out of his way. He is terrorizing his way through their subjects in his dogged pursuit.

People learn to jump out of his way. Azula scrambles in the opposite direction.

Her breath catches in her lungs as a pair of strong, wiry, arms come about her from behind once more, dragging her backward. Her yelp is stemmed by a long palm over her mouth, clamping down to suppress her voice, and her body folds with the insistence of another as she and her captor crouch down to hide amongst the confused milling of the crowd.

She catches sight of brown skin from the corner of her eye, covered by a cloak. Her hand comes up to remove his, just enough so that she can murmur a questioning “Sokka?”

“Shh!”

He ducks them a little further down as Zuko’s voice retreats in the opposite direction, and she’s dragged behind an intact pillar and out of the crowd again.

“What are you doing here,” she demands as soon as he has released her, both of them still crouched low.

“We knew where you’d gone as soon as we woke up to find you missing,” he answers. That still doesn’t really answer her _question_ , however.

“You didn’t want to come.”

“You’re right, we didn’t, and you already know the reasons. This was so _stupid_ Azula, and I know you’re not stupid,” he chastises her.

“This isn’t the time for a lecture,” she tells him flatly, frowning.

Sokka sighs, wiping a hand down his face, but doesn’t continue along his line of thought.

“Where are the others?”

“Toph and Katara are waiting on the other side of the wall to let us through and get us out of here. Aang’s back at the camp so that we can continue to keep him a secret. Suki’s with him. We need to _go_.”

“Not until we get my uncle.”

“I don’t think that’s our problem anymore.”

Azula’s frown deepens, her thoughts halting momentarily as she processes what he says. She looks up sharply, across the heads of the mob and at the pyre that towers over the entire square. Her uncle is gone. The restraints that had been used hang uselessly on the pole that he’d been lashed to what seemed only moments previously.

She feels the blood drain from her face.

“Where is he?” She looks frantically to Sokka. His expression is grim.

“Some guys in cloaks came and took him off the dais while the crowd was distracted by you and your brother scuffling. I think they were just as surprised as everyone else by the first distraction though.”

“He ambushed me.”

Sokka shakes his head and reaches out for her hand, drawing her up as he gets to his feet.

“Come on.”

Azula isn’t given time to hesitate. She’s dragged quickly away from their hiding place and down the path she assumes that Sokka used to get here. The wall closes firmly behind them like it was never opened at all, and Azula looks around at the other two girls who have come with Sokka to assist her.

Together they take off away from the palace, using the landscape as cover for their retreat. Azula’s stomach feels hollow.


End file.
